Section 9
Peer educators
training days
The training for peer educators is based
on what they need to do for the planned projects and to
provide stimulation for actually carrying out activities
as means in the fight against racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism
and intolerance. Small group discussions and brain-storm
sessions prior to the days will reveal the knowledge and
skills they already have and help them to plan the training
days.
The training often focuses on topics such
as:
You as the peer educator
• Why am I involved in racism,
xenophobia, anti-Semitism and intolerance activities?
• Where do I stand?
• What are my support systems?
Designing the programme
• Why include some topics and not
others?
• What knowledge is needed?
• Which techniques will I choose
and use?
You and the group
• How will I deal with unexpected
situations?
• How do I work with the group?
• How people behave in groups?
Planning and evaluation
• What are the expectations of
the people involved in the project?
• What makes a good working environment?
• When to organise it?
Training days, usually from morning to
evening (10.00 am to 10.00 pm) on a Saturday or Sunday have
the advantage of allowing time to work closely with a small
group over a longer period of time. These offer better opportunities
to get to know people, for finding out what other people
really think, discussing problems and getting different
opinions of how to handle the problems etc.
The responsibility for planning and running these days
can be divided between the peer educators and the peer coach.
Three for each day is a good number. Responsibilities should
be clearly define by being involved in planning the group
will get variety and some implicit training in organisational
skills.
The content of the training days may of course be varied
enormously. It is important that the topic is one which
the group is interested in. That it is relevant for the
planned peer education project in the area of racism, xenophobia,
anti-Semitism and intolerance if they are to be fully involved
in the training days.
There are many resource books around from which ideas
can be chosen for activities which are fun and will get
a group thinking and discussing. With a little imagination
many of these can be adopted to suit the theme. The most
important thing is to make a start this depends a great
deal on the group and the peer coaches. Introducing a range
of stimulus materials such as cartoons, video, poster set,
articles from newspapers, role plays are good ways of starting
and creating an atmosphere in which discussion is possible.
The following activities can be used as a stimulus for
discussions, most of them have been tried and tested in
a variety of settings and with different groups. The ideal
group size for such activities is, depending on the number
of trainers involved, 10 - 30 persons. They may need to
be adapted a little for the particular age group.
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